Tariq Ali

Introduction to a Speech in Tashkent

The speech published below was delivered in Tashkent, ussr, during the last week of April 1985, at a conference on ‘Peace and Security in Asia’ jointly organized by the United Nations University in Tokyo and the Soviet Academy of Sciences. Such events are not new, but the special interest of this gathering lay in its location and the composition of the delegates. In addition to ‘experts’ from North and South Korea, the People’s Republic of China, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines, Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Japan, India, the United States and New Left Review, a large and authoritative delegation from the Soviet Union was headed by Academicians Fedoseyev and Primakov. The former is a member of the Central Committee of the cpsu, out of favour during the last decade of Brezhnevism for suggesting that there were ‘contradictions within socialist countries’, and the latter is a key adviser on strategy in the Third World.